Falafel Waffles

I love falafel.  Used to eat it all the time in NY.  But it's not so common in San Diego.  I'd make it myself, but I hate deep frying. But Mark Bittman's love of freshly-cooked chickpeas (the the resulting broth, which he dubs 'gold') set me to cooking them myself.  Which made me want falafel.

So I thought about alternatives to deep-frying. The essence of deep-frying, I reasoned, is total immersion in high heat, where high means more than boiling, hot enough to brown.

Enter the waffle iron, a device that forms batter into a shape with a lot of surface area exposed to high heat.  Clearly, this is genius on two scales, I thought: it will work beautifully; it rhymes.

Trademark time!  Google search!  First entry: No, you aren't the first person to think of falafel waffles.  D'oh! Still, there aren't many falafel waffle recipes out there, and many included wheat flour, but I wanted both wheat- and gluten-free, so I set out on my own expedition.

I started with chickpea flour (Bob's Red Mill).  For seasoning I used garlic, scallion and some fresh herbs (various mixtures of dill, cilantro, mint and basil.)  The taste was great, but I had used very little water, just enough to bring the mixture to a paste, and that did not work so well in a waffle iron.  If I left it long enough to brown, my falafel turned into a jawbreaker.

So gradually I increased the liquids, water and some olive oil, until I got to a pour-able batter, just like flour waffles.  On the advice of waffle experts, I added baking powder, and where others added a little wheat flour for binding, I added arrowroot.  I haven't done controlled experiments on the effects of the arrowroot as a binding agent, so don't panic if you don't have any.


In addition to the baking powder, I borrowed the traditional wet/dry method from baking: two bowls, one for wet ingredients, one for dry, mix each thoroughly, then combine.  The wet and dry mixtures should be roughly equal in volume.  This recipe uses 1/2 Cup of each, resulting in about two waffles in a medium-sized circular waffle iron.

The result is spicy, savory waffles, light and crunchy, with a uniform texture.  They are different from traditional falafel, but close enough for my purposes.  I eat them as a standalone snack, or with chopped  cabbage (usually red) dressed with a sauce made of lemon and tahini (sesame paste).

To restore some of the feel of traditional falafel, I often add small quantities of mashed chickpeas, cooked brown rice, or both.  Both of these reduce the tensile strength of the waffle, but add a nice crumbly texture and nuttiness.


I put the wet ingredients in a measuring cup and puree with an immersion blender:

• 2 scallions or 2 cloves of garlic, or mixture
• a few sprigs of herbs
• pinch of salt
• a tablespoon or two of olive oil
• enough water to bring the level to 1/2 Cup.
• Optional: a tablespoon or two of chopped/mashed chickpeas and/or brown rice (cooked)

Dry:

• 1/2 Cup chickpea flour
• pinches of salt, pepper, cayenne, cumin
• 1 teaspoon of arrowroot
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

The resulting batter should pour easily. If not, add more water and mix until it does.  Bean flour takes some time to re-hydrate.  I let the batter rest for an hour; anything less than that seems to leave a hint of raw bean taste.  This recipe makes about two waffles in a circular waffle iron.

Fish in Monk's Clothing

"Merry Christmas! Could you come to the kitchen and help with the fish?" It wasn't exactly unexpected, but it was still a nice little challenge, like Top Chef the home edition. Unfamiliar kitchen, lots of competition for space, no specific instructions and the opportunity to make or break someone's Christmas dinner. On such occasions, it's good to have a little bit of wisdom from Julia Child in your back pocket.

My travel plans to Illinois had been delayed for two days by snow and ice, so I ended up flying on Christmas day, getting to my brother's house about an hour and a half before guests were showing up for dinner. Everything on the menu was traditional in that household except for the fish, which my brother doesn't eat, so I got volunteered to cook that.

Again, I did have some warning. Several days before, my brother had mentioned on the phone that some guests had asked for fish instead of tenderloin, and that he had bought some frozen tilapia filets. All he needed was a recipe. I said that for simple white fish, I used to like the method that Julia Child had gotten from some monks in the south of France, an episode entitled ``Fish in Monk's Clothing,'' where the fish is baked covered in lots of aromatic vegetables. "Search on the internet, I'm sure you'll find a recipe," I said.

Well, he had searched and had found four recipes for tilapia, but none were Julia's. I didn't like the look of them and although I hadn't made this dish in years, I preferred to find my own way again. Fortunately, the dish turned out well, but the down side was that I had no recipe to give to the people who asked for one, only a bunch of vague constraints.

The essential thing is that the mix of vegetables should taste good, but be reasonably mild so as not to overpower the fish, and should still have a lot of moisture in it. You need enough to cover the fish reasonably well. The vegetables drip flavor into the fish while at the same time protecting it from losing moisture in the direct heat of the oven.

(For the Haskell readers, think of the following as a sort of QuickCheck test suite for the actual method.)

1. Chop and saute a bunch of aromatic vegetables, season with salt and pepper, thyme or other mild herbs, and reduce with some white wine. The vegetables should be soft, but still very moist and it's good to have some liquid remaining.
   
2. TASTE the vegetables. If they don't taste good, fiddle with the seasoning until they do.
   
3. Season the filets with salt and pepper, then place on an oiled baking pan. If the tails of the filets are much thinner than the main part of the body, overlap them so that the fish is roughly the same thickness all over.
4. Layer the vegetables over the fish along with any remaining liquid.
5. Bake gently until the fish is just opaque and flakes easily. I think we did 350F for about 15 minutes, but this will vary with the amount and size. You could also microwave it for 5-10 minutes, covered, if you use a glass or porcelain casserole dish.
   

As for which vegetables, that varies based on what I have on hand, but start by sweating an onion in olive oil and butter, then adding celery and a few chopped cloves of garlic. It is fine to brown the onion a bit, but not the garlic. This time we added some chopped mushrooms and parsley. I have added carrots in the past, but that's about as strong as I would go. Julia Child used a head of iceberg lettuce chopped up, but I've never had the nerve to try that. Spinach or swiss chard make a nice choice, but kale, mustard greens and cabbage are too strong. Fennel is a nice addition if you like anise flavor.

Any simple white fish works here, such as flounder, sole, tilapia, catfish, etc. I think I've done it successfully with bluefish, but I would avoid salmon.

How close this is to what Julia Child did, I really don't remember, because I only saw the show once long ago, but I'm pretty sure I've got the essence right. It's a simple way to marry fish with whatever vegetables are available. In any case, it was good enough for Christmas dinner.

Pie Night

My friends Michael and Susan have a wonderful tradition that grew out of growing too many pumpkins.

Pie night.








They make 10-15 pies, everybody brings a pie, everybody eats pie until they can't eat no more.


And then we have pie for breakfast.

Stalking Spicy Cocoa (Cocoa Capsaicin)

Last winter I made a serious attempt to cut all refined sugar out of my diet. I was also not drinking coffee at the time. Either one would have been fine, but removing both left a gap that I needed to fill, so I started experimenting with a sugarless cocoa. I ended up with a recipe that I felt was drinkable, but not stunning. Still, after several months of making it, I found that I could not go back to the normal sugared cocoa. Anything over a pinch of sugar tasted out of balance. Winter is knocking at the door again (in San Diego, that means it is getting down to 50F at night and doesn't make it to 80F during the day), so I'm going to start fiddling again.

I knew two interesting facts about cocoa: adding a pinch of salt improves the flavor; the Aztecs used chile peppers instead of sugar. I like spicy foods and there's a local chocolate company that makes a nice chile pepper chocolate bar, so I felt I had a good starting point.

Removing the sugar definitely leaves a gap. Adding salt warms the flavor of the chocolate, but it is easy to go too far. With sugar, I add just a few grains of kosher salt per cup. Without sugar, I increased this to a small pinch with good results, but if I went as far as a normal pinch for savory dishes, the flavor of the salt came through. The quantities are small enough that measurements with standard kitchen equipment are tough, and I think it's better to find the break point with your own taste buds.

Next, I added cayenne pepper. This produced a satisfactory bite, but there was still a gap on the tongue where the sugar used to be. So I started adding other spices: cumin, coriander, cinnamon and nutmeg. You can get pretty aggressive with the cumin, but the coriander is like the salt in that a little helps and a little bit more is too much. It's hard to get a nice clean flavor with this technique, but you do get a sort of earthy bass line and that's what I ultimately came to like.

I also experimented with adding back just a pinch of sugar, about the same amount as the salt, and that was enough, given all the other new flavors, to make it taste sweet again.

As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that I should go back and get a whole variety of dried chile peppers and start from scratch. There are a lot of varieties that I have not dabbled with, many with more rounded flavors than cayenne. Also, I doubt the Aztecs used milk. Perhaps there is another path that will lead to a better result. Seems like an excellent project for the coming winter.

To make this yourself, put a small, heavy sauce pan over low heat and add a pinch each of:

• kosher salt,
• cayenne,
• cumin,
• coriander and
• cinammon.

Toast the spices gently for thirty seconds or so. Add:

• freshly grated nutmeg and
  
• a heaping table spoon of (sugarless) cocoa powder (dutch process is good.)
  

Toss to combine. Add:

• a mug full of milk,

whisking in a little bit at a time until the cocoa is fully combined with the milk. Heat until the milk begins to steam, but not to the point of simmering. Add:

• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Pour and serve. The spices accumulate in the bottom of the mug. If you don't like the grittiness, be careful as you pour to leave them behind or strain the cocoa through a fine sieve.

Lamb Stew with Zucchini and Steel-Cut Oats

I grilled a leg of lamb earlier this week when refugees from the San Diego fires were staying with me. Normally I make this dish for parties and there is nothing left over, but this crowd had small appetites. Even after some lovely lamb sandwiches, there was plenty left. The weather has now turned colder and we're getting a bit of rain, so I decided a stew was in order. I had some lovely zucchini that would certainly go well with the lamb, but I felt the stew could use a binding agent.

Earlier this year I saw Alton Brown's show on oatmeal. All my previous attempts at making steel-cut oats had failed to impress, but his recipe produced a wonderful dish that has since been a staple. But that left me wondering why oats are such a niche grain: breakfast cereal, cookie filler and granola grain.

Alton's trick to cooking steel-cut oats is to delay the addition of salt, because it seals the starch in the grain. If allowed to escape, the starch forms a creamy sauce, just like Arborio rice in risotto. It seemed like that was just what I needed for my stew.

The experiment was a success. The oats didn't lose their texture, as rice sometimes does, and the starch thickened the sauce, but never felt like glue, as flour sometimes does. The dish also has the benefit of being wheat and gluten free (except for trace elements that might have been introduced while processing the oats), a plus for several people I know.

The following recipe fits easily into a large latte' mug.

• Half a small yellow onion, diced.
• Two small zucchini, diced.
• 1/2 C grilled lamb, diced.
• 1/4 C steel-cut oats.
• 1 1/2-2 C chicken broth.
• Olive oil.

Heat a sauce pan over low to medium heat, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom and sweat the onions until translucent. Add the zucchini, toss until they begin to soften, then add the oats and continue to toss until the zucchini is soft and moist looking. There should be enough oil to cover the oats so that they do not stick, and ideally they should toast a bit.

Add the lamb, toss, then add enough stock to cover the ingredients. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for fifteen minutes. Taste the stew and season as needed. I put a lot of spices on my grilled lamb, so I added just a little salt at this point. Cover and simmer until the oats are tender, another 10-15 minutes.

I also have some leftover chuck roast. Perhaps I'll try the same again tomorrow with that instead of the lamb.